Euronews

The economic recession has caused difficulties for people around the world, but according to a UN report, cross-border criminals are doing quite well out of it.
It estimates the turnover of cross-border organised crime to be in the region of 710 billion euros per year, equivalent to 1.5 percent of the World’s gross domestic product.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said stopping this transnational threat, where drug trafficking and counterfeiting bring the most profit, is one of the greatest challenges to the international community.

“Millions of victims are affected each year as a result of the activities of organised crime groups, with human trafficking victims alone numbering 2.4 million at any one time,” the UNODC said in a statement.

This is the first time the agency has made an estimate on what organised criminals are making, and they arrived that this figure by drawing on information about counterfeit goods as well as available data on the cost of human trafficking.